When Warrick Dunn was 18, his single mother, a police officer moonlighting as a security guard, was murdered during an armed robbery. That left Dunn and his five younger siblings without a parent, and he considered quitting football and skipping college to get a job and care for his family. But members of the Dunns’ Baton Rouge community banded together to take care of his siblings while he continued with his plans to attend Florida State, and he vowed that if he ever had the means, he would repay that help by taking care of not just his own family, but also other struggling families.
Dunn has come through on that vow, and then some.
Warrick Dunn Charities, which Dunn founded when he got into the NFL, has just donated its 115th home to a needy family of a single parent. The latest recipient is a woman in Hall County, Georgia, who had been struggling to get by with her three sons but has now been given a fully furnished home by Dunn’s organization.
“One of the key things she said is that, ‘I had one bed.’ We supplied her with everything that she needs,” Dunn told WDUN. “When she pulled up she was excited to see me, but I think the joy was when we walked through the home and she got to see everything in the house was hers. I feel like we changed a life.”